Tree work is a good skill to have develop! What do you do for work on your homestead?
Oh it's not much of a homestead. I'm on a couple acres, but surrounded by 160 acres of family farm land. I have some informal responsibility in maintaining the farmland, mostly involving keeping the damned fence lines cut back, which is also where all my firewood comes from. Also clearing up dead falls and the like. It was a dairy farm and my father co-owed that business with his uncle. When he passed and my father went into engineering, the land went to my father's cousins and you know, now it's one of those big family circus deals, without going into too much detail. But we've got a newer 40 hp 4wd tractor with a loader, bush hog... the farmland is leased to a guy who makes small square bales so I'm sometimes involved with that. My father just had the 1952 Farmall Super C bought new by my great uncle restored to like new condition- that's gorgeous now. Also have a '63 ish Massey Ferguson 85 that runs decent, but could use some body work, lol. The seat cushion currently is a piece of PU foam wrapped in an old shower curtain.
I've been cutting firewood since I was a kid. Had a farmboss, but eventually started falling trees that needed a good sized saw and nabbed myself a 372 off fleabay that is still my go to saw to this day. I got into climbing because I had some overgrown blue and white spruce that needed removal on my property (and I always loved it, I always climbed trees as a kid, I was just drawn to it). No room to drop them, but straightforward climbs; limb up, chunk down. That was about 10 years ago. I started branching out [/pun] from there, self learning DdRT, very basic rigging, very basic pruning. Bought a used 200T in good nick. Eventually started doing favors for family, then co-workers started paying me to do jobs and it kind of turned into my side gig. That and hand filing chains for people, lol. I have a groundie buddy who helps occasionally when I need to do some rigging, I end up doing a job every month or so, and it works out pretty well. I'm as conservative as you can get- I'm never afraid to tell people when to hire a pro, or a bucket truck. I do low risk stuff and only when the homeowner is doing cleanup. I'll buck stuff into firewood for someone If I like em but that's about it. I get it on the ground and I'm on my way.
There's an outside chance my father and I will try to buy or buy into the farm land again; he does almost all the maintenance on the buildings and equipment now, and gets nothing in return. He's just emotionally invested in the land and buildings. The big red barn in the photo is circa early 1800s. I inherited the white farmhouse in '08 and have been renovating/restoring it ever since. That dates back to about 1780.
